[icebraining]

They sell targeted advertising. And to target effectively, you need personal data. I never said they sold that data, just that they need to collect it.

[spokengent]

They don't need to.

You search for X, they show adverts related to X.

The extra targeting stuff probably increases their revenue a few %.

[icebraining]

That produces inferior results. But whether they need or not is irrelevant. They do.